I just got to hang out with a good friend of mine. We’d seen each other at church a bunch, but we hadn’t had a good, long conversation in a while. It seems like I was in his wedding, then a few years passed, and here we are.

That, I’ve found, is the biggest difference between adolescence and adulthood: the amount of time you get to spend with your friends.

That surprised me when I realized it. For most of my youth, I thought of adults as being very adult for the most part: wise, experienced, responsible, capable, confident, and well-resourced. I thought that by the time you got to be a grown-up, you’d basically have your act together.

I’m 27. I’m a husband, father, and pastor, and I don’t have my act all together.

I got out into the working world when I was 17 or so. As I spent more time around adults, I realized a truly horrifying thing.

High school really does prepare you for the rest of life. Some people never move past that level of maturity. Funny enough, my co-workers at church are some of the youngest, but most mature people I’ve worked with.

I was shocked to discover that experience does not always equate to wisdom. I was dumbfounded when I ran into well-educated-yet-immature people. I was frankly dismayed when I realized that, quite often, “experts” are people that know just enough to be dangerous.

I kept expecting that, someday, I would feel like I knew what I was doing. Then, I looked around and saw other people having the same thought.

To be fair, I have grown a lot since high school. A lot. I continue to mature, quicker in some areas than in others. Still, adulthood doesn’t feel like I thought it would. I thought I’d be done growing, and be all sophisticated.

On one hand, this bodes well for us geeks. I recently read (most of) an article in Salon about grown-ups playing D&D. I thought I’d automatically grow out of gaming at a certain age, like shedding a cocoon. Not necessarily.

This could work.

The only problem — as I mentioned at the beginning of the post — is finding the time. I have to be really deliberate about scheduling my life compared to even a couple years ago. I’m still not very good at it, but I’m better than I’ve ever been. There’s that growth I was talking about.

Being an adult is more a matter of steadily maturing than finally being mature. It’s a matter of shifting my priorities from myself to others.

But I still get to play video games occasionally, so… woot.